Dreaming is the only act of creation left for the powerless.
In a dream, you can taste bread that was never baked. You can hear a voice that has been silent for a decade. You can see yourself with two eyes and a soul that doesn't feel like a cracked window.
Tonight, I was standing in a field of wheat. The sun was warm on my skin—a sensation I had forgotten. I reached out to touch a stalk, and for a fleeting second, I smelled the earth.
Then, the blue screen appeared.
It didn't hover in the air. It was etched into the sky itself, a jagged crack of light that bled through the clouds.
**[Synchronization: 41%.]**
**[The Third Price is due.]**
**[Notice: Dream Faculty is being harvested.]**
The wheat field didn't catch fire. It didn't blow away. It simply ceased to be. The sun flickered and died. The warmth on my skin turned into the cold, clinical air of the void.
The color was drained from the world, leaving behind a grey, sterile geometry.
I tried to hold onto the memory of my mother's face, but it was slipping through my fingers like dry sand. I tried to scream, but the concept of sound had already been taken from me.
I woke up.
My one eye opened to the damp, mossy ceiling of Shiden's hut.
There was no transition. No lingering feeling of rest. I went from the void of sleep to the void of reality in a single, silent snap.
I sat up. My body felt heavier. The obsidian scales on my neck had fused into a collar of cold stone. I touched my chest, where the seal was. It was silent. No pulse. No heat.
I couldn't hear the wind. I couldn't taste the air.
And now, I couldn't even dream of a better world.
*Get up, Little Singularity.*
Shiden's thought echoed in my skull, as sharp and unwelcome as a thorn.
I stood and walked outside. The Grey Forest was bathed in a sickly, pre-dawn light. Shiden was standing in the center of the clearing, his massive broken claymore—the Ragnor Fang—held loosely in one hand.
He looked at me, and for the first time, his mental voice held no mockery.
*You look empty, Rai. Truly empty.*
*The price was paid,* I thought back. *I'm ready.*
*Ready for what? To die?* Shiden spat to the side. *You think because you've lost everything, you're invincible? That's the lie the Empire tells its martyrs. Loss doesn't make you strong. It just makes you easier to break.*
He raised the Fang. The grey lightning began to coil around the steel, but it wasn't wild. It was disciplined. It was a law.
*Today, we stop playing with 'Rejection'. You've been saying 'No' to the world like a child throwing a tantrum. But a void with no purpose is just a hole in the ground.*
Shiden lunged.
He didn't move fast. He moved *inevitably*. It was the movement of a mountain deciding to be somewhere else.
I raised my obsidian arm to block.
The moment the Fang hit my forearm, the ground beneath me didn't just crack. It disintegrated into dust. The pressure was astronomical. Shiden wasn't just hitting my body; he was exerting the weight of his entire existence against mine.
*Reject it!* his voice roared in my mind.
I tried. I pushed the "Ketsubetsu" into the point of contact. I denied the impact. I denied the force.
But the blade didn't move. Shiden's lightning cut through my rejection like a hot wire through wax.
*You're still trying to push the world away, Rai. But you're part of the world. You're trying to reject the floor while you're standing on it.*
I felt my knees buckle. The obsidian scales on my shoulder began to crack, black blood oozing from the fissures.
*Don't just say 'No' to my blade,* Shiden commanded. *Define the space where the blade cannot be. Create your own Dominion.*
The pain was a distant thing, but the pressure was absolute. I felt my one eye beginning to bleed. The "Key" in my chest began to hum—not a sound, but a vibration that threatened to tear my ribs apart.
**[Causality Synchronization: 44%.]**
**[Internal Logic Conflict Detected.]**
**[Proposal: Transition from Rejection to Dominion.]**
*Dominion,* I thought.
A void isn't just an empty space. A vacuum is a force. It draws things in. It consumes.[[1](https://www.google.com/url?sa=E&q=https%3A%2F%2Fvertexaisearch.cloud.google.com%2Fgrounding-api-redirect%2FAUZIYQFCySZ89j7ZuRBU27V03xw9zSsSRAQ9EuQlZ3Gghk8LeXewsbTdtYBWey-UfNqXxcC-tF0E4b88pPgCfFg_uLv6ysqCFCw5D0uRaNDeXhkreBCDi1Q_iWSUntcod9ii7CylEtZuR0IYdcjpJ54ugxhOF9EmWRMDkfAno5zo7qKiBAdRqWtprBHGjMjx1Nv2P5D3lSeaJy_zpyNxe0GEf3sZ-WSt5YPjAblO)] It dictates the terms of the matter around it.
I stopped pushing.
Instead of trying to shove Shiden's blade away, I opened my "Rejection." I turned my body into a sinkhole of causality.
The grey lightning didn't hit me anymore. It was *swallowed*.
The weight of the Fang vanished. Not because Shiden stopped, but because the kinetic energy of his strike had nowhere to go. It was being sucked into the void of my "Ketsubetsu."
Shiden's eyes widened. He tried to pull the sword back, but it was caught in the gravity of my space.
*My space,* I thought. *My law.*
In this six-foot circle around me, there is no Empire. There is no lightning. There is no hunger. There is only the silence of the void.
I took a step forward.
The movement was effortless. I wasn't fighting the air. The air was moving out of my way because I had rejected its right to resist me.
I reached out and touched the hilt of the Fang.
The grey lightning turned black. The ancient steel of the blade groaned, the runes Shiden had carved into it thousands of years ago flickering and dying.
I looked Shiden in the eye.
*I don't want to be a bridge, Shiden. I want to be the end of the road.*
I pushed my hand forward.
The shockwave didn't go outward. It imploded.
Shiden was thrown back, not by a force, but by the sudden absence of it. He hit the willow tree with a thud that I felt through the soles of my boots.
The clearing went silent. The stagnant pond didn't ripple. The leaves didn't rustle.
Shiden sat against the tree, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He looked at the Fang, which was now vibrating with a dull, obsidian light.
He looked at me.
*You did it, you little monster.* His mental voice was weary, but there was a flicker of something like pride buried in it. *You've built your first room in the void.*
*Is it enough?* I asked.
*To survive Kaelen? Yes. To survive the 'First Hero'? No.*
Shiden pulled himself up, using the Fang as a crutch. He walked over to me and placed a heavy, calloused hand on my shoulder.
*The Astra Dominion is built on the bones of the First Hero. He was the one who taught humanity how to use Inga. But he wasn't a saint. He was a tyrant who wanted to turn the whole world into his personal clockwork.*
Shiden looked toward the distant, glowing spires of Astra.
*They keep him in a state of 'Eternal Stasis' beneath the Grand Archives. They use his heart as a battery for the city's defenses. If they wake him... if they let him out to hunt you...*
*I'll reject him too,* I said.
Shiden shook his head.
*You can't reject a foundation, Rai. You can only replace it. If you want to save the girl and tear down that city, you have to do more than break their laws. You have to write your own.*
He reached into his gourd and pulled out a small, silver coin. It was worn thin, the image of a bird on one side and a broken chain on the other.
*This is a pass to the lower levels of the Archives. Tomas Velin isn't the only one playing games. There are others in the city who are tired of the clockwork. Find the 'Clockmaker' in the slums. He'll tell you when the heart skips a beat.*
I took the coin. It felt warm. It was the only thing in the world that had a temperature to me.
I walked back to the hut. Aira was still there, her silver hair shimmering in the dim light. She looked peaceful. Like a dream I could no longer have.
I picked her up. She was lighter than before. As if the pieces of her soul I was finding were making her more real, but less physical.
*We're leaving,* I thought.
I walked out of the clearing, heading toward the edge of the Grey Forest. Shiden didn't follow. He stood by the pond, his broken sword resting on his shoulder.
*One last thing, Rai,* his voice echoed in my head, distant now.
I stopped.
*The prices...[[1](https://www.google.com/url?sa=E&q=https%3A%2F%2Fvertexaisearch.cloud.google.com%2Fgrounding-api-redirect%2FAUZIYQFCySZ89j7ZuRBU27V03xw9zSsSRAQ9EuQlZ3Gghk8LeXewsbTdtYBWey-UfNqXxcC-tF0E4b88pPgCfFg_uLv6ysqCFCw5D0uRaNDeXhkreBCDi1Q_iWSUntcod9ii7CylEtZuR0IYdcjpJ54ugxhOF9EmWRMDkfAno5zo7qKiBAdRqWtprBHGjMjx1Nv2P5D3lSeaJy_zpyNxe0GEf3sZ-WSt5YPjAblO)] they don't stop at your dreams. The next one will take something you didn't even know you had. Be careful. If you lose too much of yourself, there won't be anyone left to hold the 'Key'.*
I didn't look back.
*There's already no one left, Shiden. Just a hole with a name.*
I stepped out of the forest.
The road to Astra was a long, grey ribbon of dust. In the distance, the city glowed with an arrogant, artificial brilliance. It looked like a crown placed on the head of a corpse.
I started walking.
Every step was a declaration of war.
Every breath was a rejection of the Empire's right to exist.
I wasn't a hero. I wasn't a savior.
I was the Architecture of a Void. And I was coming to find the heart that powered my prison.
**[Causality Synchronization: 48%.]**
**[Hidden Quest Updated: The Song of the Gen.]**
**[New Objective: Infiltrate the Grand Archives.]**
**[Warning: The Fourth Price is approaching.]**
**[The price of the next evolution: Your sense of touch.]**
I looked at Aira's face in my arms. I looked at the black scales on my hands.
*Let it go,* I thought. *I don't need to feel the world to destroy it.*
The city gates loomed ahead, guarded by a row of Silver Wing Knights. They didn't see a boy with a girl.
They saw a shadow that the sun couldn't touch.
And for the first time in their lives, they felt the clockwork of their hearts start to fail.
The Wager was on.
And I was betting everything on zero.